Hi all, as stated above did my router die yesterday. Now I'm looking into mesh routers. It would be convenient if the satellites can repeat z-wave and zigbee as well. Can I use the ST hardware for that? (Not interested in ST as smarthome hub.) Do you have other suggestions or what do you use in your situations?
Rik
First, where do you live. The below assumes North America; however, given the time that may be a bad assumption.
Typically, mesh satellites do not include Zigbee or Z-Wave repeaters. As far as using a Mesh, it depends on your house square footage and geometry. My brother has (and likes) his Amazon eero (US). A single unit covers nominally 1500 sq feet. He bought two on sale. You can get on Amazon in US. TP-Link also makes a well rated unit (link at bottom).
PS - I would stay away from SmartThings for a while. They are having problems during the transition to dump community developed apps and drivers.
I like TP-link, so I second the above except I would recommend Wi-Fi 6 (ax) at this point if you can swing the extra loot. Things will only get faster and if your ROI for a router is 5-7 years AX will outlast AC (depending on your internet and device usage)
eero is going to be releasing a Wi-Fi 6 router from reports of FCC filings. If you're not in a hurry could be one to wait for to get good bang for the buck.
For consumer-level stuff, if you don't mind being in the Amazon ecosystem, they offer an excellent user experience, and when I ran them several years back I had excellent coverage and great reliability. I had the eero Pro (base + 2 sats). Definitely worth a look.
These eero's look good! Meanwhile I contacted my internet provider and it appeared the router is there property. They will send a new one so that is one thing. but parts of my home still don't have wifi after it is connected I'm afraid. Can I use that together with this eero stuff? On their website they say: "Keep your modem and internet provider, eero can be set up as a standalone router or coverage extender. Connect an eero to your modem and you’ll get up to 1,500 sq. ft. of WiFi right off the bat." That would be a great solution!
BTW I'm in the Netherlands.
Hmmm... Now I read that eero is a Amazon company. Don't know if I want that. These big tech companies don't get my support usually. That's one of the reasons I went with Hubitat. Second, they only sell in the US and Canada as far as I can see. Looking for another solution now. Maybe these TP's are a better choice for me?
Check out unifi stuff. It's not the prettiest, fastest, cheapest, but it has legit support from a company known to stand by their products. Their software is definitely "prosumer" level at minimum, where most mesh devices top out at "decent consumer".
You'll own unifi hardware until one day, 15 years from now, some piece of hardware won't support the "old" wifi standards, and you'll have to upgrade. And that will be the first time in 15 years you worried about wifi.
My original unifi ap with mikrotik router is going maybe 8 years strong now. One time I had to reconfigure the ap, and that was to change the ssid (and I updated it as well).
I've been very happy with my switch from a Netgear X6S to a Linksys Velop AX. The biggest things are that it is fast enough to give full Gigabit upload and download speeds (the Netgear would only get 500 most of the time), my printer actually stays connected now (HP Color Laserjet), and one node covers my 2600 square foot house pretty well with the router in the center. I have 57 devices connected to it currently.
Ok. I just learned that is Ubiquiti stuff isn't it? Looks very nice I must say and I will have a further look into this brand. Thanks for the tip @ChubChub!
@Ken_Fraleigh: thanks for the tip as well but this is much more expensive I noticed. But I don't need all these ridiculous high speeds at all. With my ADSL connection I can watch lets say a HD youtube but not 2 at the same time. No way. And here is no better alternative and we are used to it already.
Meanwhile I received the new router from my ISP and everything is working again. But still not everywhere in the house so a mesh will be needed. My house is about 20 meters (or yards roughly) long but the garden is 50 x 50 meters behind the house and the front with the driveway is maybe 20 x 100 meters. In time I would like to have lights up the the entrance and in between the road and house. Will be wifi lights I'm afraid, otherwise I don't see how I can make that.
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If you think Velop is expensive, don't waste you time look at Unifi it is about the same. If your running a ADSL connection you do not need the newest mesh. get the cheapest mesh unit you can (think used on eBay). None of this matters at those speeds. You just need coverage, any mesh network will far out pace your ADSL speeds (even Wireless G is 72 Mbps, what the ADSL 3?)
I would look into low voltage landscape lighting. I have about 20 lights lining our driveway. They are connected to a Zooz 3 way dry contact in the basement, along with other landscape lighting. We can control each zone via HE/automated for when people come home and it is dark out.
@RikHj if you want zigbee then install a zigbee smart plug next to each router
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